{"id":372,"date":"2009-07-06T15:17:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-06T15:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2009\/07\/stupid-mulberries.html"},"modified":"2009-07-06T15:17:00","modified_gmt":"2009-07-06T15:17:00","slug":"stupid-mulberries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2009\/07\/stupid-mulberries.html","title":{"rendered":"Stupid Mulberries"},"content":{"rendered":"

As most people know, Nebraska is more or less rolling prarielands, with very very few trees.<\/p>\n

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The part of Nebraska we’re in has more terrain to it, and it also has some nice wooded areas. Particularly along the Platte and Missouri Rivers. We live about 5 miles north of the Platte, and I guess about 5 miles west of the Missouri, too. Cool.<\/p>\n

Anyhoo, we are fortunate to have 3 very tall trees in our backyard. Most of the houses in our neighborhood have a couple tall trees, in fact. We have two honey locust<\/a> trees on the right, in this picture. The leftmost tree is a white mulberry<\/a> (I think).<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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From 2009 06 30 StupidMulberries<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n
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From 2009 06 30 StupidMulberries<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

We have had many issues with the two locust trees, most recently a night of thunderstorms had us waking up to this large branch dangling:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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From 2009 07 04 LocustBranchWindDamage<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Yesterday I trimmed the bottom of the branch, to get the leaves off the ground, and we’ll call our property manager to take care of the rest of it this week.<\/p>\n

But this post is about what a pain in the rear the mulberry tree has been. We moved into this house on August 1st of last year. I guess we were at the tail end of the mulberry dropping season, there was a little bit of mess, but not a ton. When we got back from our vacation last weekend, our back patio was pock-marked in mulberry stains:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From 2009 06 30 StupidMulberries<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

We love our backyard. The kids have a cool swingset, they have a flat place to play soccer, Star Wars, fetch with Howie, etc. But lately it’s been a pain because they’re tracking in the mulberry ooze, bringing the deep purple juice all through the house, all over the carpets. Dave has been powerwashing our patio every couple days. Here’s the bottom of my running shoe: <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From 2009 06 30 StupidMulberries<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

So now the kids have strict orders to remove their shoes the second they come inside. Usually not a difficult thing, but Saturday night Jacob ran in looking for one of his Nerf guns and didn’t remove his shoes first: a fresh mulberry on the bottom of his shoe left perfect little circular prints all over our family room, stairs and living room as Jacob was searching for his toy.<\/p>\n

As for Howie, we have to make him sit as soon as he comes inside, and then take a wet paper towel to wipe his paws. I shampooed the carpets last week, which Howie really enjoyed<\/a> — really, he seems to like the smell of the Rug Doctor shampoo.<\/p>\n

There’s very little else we can do — we’ll just have to keep our grill covered, our patio furniture covered and tend to avoid that part of the backyard until mid-August. Boo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As most people know, Nebraska is more or less rolling prarielands, with very very few trees. The part of Nebraska we’re in has more terrain to it, and it also has some nice wooded areas. Particularly along the Platte and Missouri Rivers. We live about 5 miles north of the Platte, and I guess about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[],"tags":[620,68],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5ycQ0-60","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":419,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2010\/03\/nebraska-discoveries-snow-geese.html","url_meta":{"origin":372,"position":0},"title":"Nebraska Discoveries 10: Snow Geese","date":"14 March 10","format":false,"excerpt":"For the past 2-3 weeks, it's been slowly warming here. I wish I had blogged a little more about the extreme bitter cold we experienced here, and the record-after-record-after-record snowfall we had here in the Omaha area since December. I'll be updating our \"Vollmer Weather Curse\" post soon with this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"bird watching\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":242,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2008\/09\/our-amazing-weekend.html","url_meta":{"origin":372,"position":1},"title":"Nebraska Discoveries 6: Our Weekend in North Platte","date":"23 September 08","format":false,"excerpt":"This past weekend we rented a camper from the Air Force base and drove it 280 miles west of here to the town of North Platte, Nebraska. They were holding their annual \"Railfest\", this big Union Pacific Railroad\/Town of North Platte celebration weekend. 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Eastern Nebraska Birding 101","date":"03 May 09","format":false,"excerpt":"Today was a gloriously beautiful day! \u00a0I can't believe I was able to enjoy just about all day outside...I mowed the lawn for the first time this season, worked more on my garden, and planted a couple of containers with annual flowers purchased yesterday from\u00a0Timmy's child care center's fund raiser.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"bird watching\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":436,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2010\/05\/nebraska-discoveries-6-herbie-the-thirteen-striped-ground-squirrel.html","url_meta":{"origin":372,"position":5},"title":"Nebraska Discoveries 15: Herbie the Thirteen-Striped Ground Squirrel","date":"17 May 10","format":false,"excerpt":"For those who didn't know, living is Nebraska is the farthest west I've ever lived in the Continental U.S. \u00a0I lived in Hawaii as a child, and Seoul, Korea in the late 1990s, but this discussion is about experiences in the GREAT PLAINS! 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